Bottoms Up Ad Messes With Kid's Mind, Frustrates Mom

"Mommy, why does the lady on that sign have her bottom sticking up and there's like a string tied around it?"

"Well, honey, it gets hot here in Florida and sometimes your bottom can get sweaty. It's just an advertisement for a place where woman can go cool their bottoms off."

"But mommy, it says 'Gentleman's Club.' Why does it say that if only ladies go there? Have you been there? Is your bottom hot?"

"Oh no, no, no, honey. I haven't been there but I think men go there to help the women cool off. I don't know how they do it. Maybe they have to hold the fans or something. Hey, want to go to McDonald's?"

"Um, OK, but I still don't get it. Why don't the ladies just take a bath to cool off? Why do they lie down and stick their bottoms in the air? It looks like they want people to look at it."

"Well, honey, you know how some people have really pretty faces or really pretty hair and other people like to say nice things about them? It's kind of like that."

"So...could I go there if I wanted people to like my bottom and cool it off? I do get hot sometimes."

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Comments

Comments

Ok we have a runner up to favorite post. "Jamie Lee Curtis Can't Take A Dump" is still #1. (should be #2 simply based on the topic)
And "Big Butt Shit Mac" could be used in those Subway tv ads; "and can I get a side of hypertension instead of the lethal flatulence?"

Posted by: Mike Janicke on March 20, 2008 1:20 PM

Yo, hey Steve, that's my chapter title in The Age of Conversation book, "Mommy, Why is that lady licking a beer bottle?"

AND my headline on the original Shaping Youth post, "Mommy, Why are her legs spread like that?" which took ADRANTS to task for applauding same.

Recall I said we should strap sophomoric ad hipsters into carpools toting kids for penance and let THEM sit in bumper to bumper traffic answering the questions that persistently pop out of kids mouths, or let them watch tweens crawl inside themselves with appearance-driven angst when a sibling asks what the ad is FOR...

Ironically I was referring to YOUR Adrants comments on that traffic/billboard link above, though I'm pleased this post alludes to a 180 change of heart.

Did staffers get ahold of the damage to kids in the APA report? Hey, whatever works to get our industry to see the elephant on the freeway. ;-)

Pardon the coincidence (and it is a coincidence) but I've never read your book nor heard of it. I never read or saw the post you wrote and refer to above either. So I'm not quite sure how you are claiming I copied anything from you.

Are you actually arguing that the conversational scenario I wrote here could only be envisioned by you and that no other human could possibly have this experience? And by experience I mean this scenario is analogous to many such conversation I have with my kids about advertising on a daily basis. Do you have a lock on all parent/kid conversations? Are all parents now banned from conversation such as this for fear of being accused of plagiarism?

You might have written a book but not everyone's read it. I certainly haven't.

If we did spar, I don't know where. A search on Adrants for "shaping youth" returns nothing.

Are you actually arguing that this:

"Mommy, why does the lady on that sign have her bottom sticking up and there's like a string tied around it?"

is the same as this:

"Mommy, Why is that lady licking a beer bottle?"

That's a stretch and hardly a riff off.

Just because I'm poking fun at this billboard with a pseudo mommy/kid conversation doesn't mean I've made a 180 and I'm condemning it. I'm merely sharing a likely scenario that could occur.